


Nothing Ever Doesn't Change

by SoAshamed



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, FML, Humanstuck, M/M, Romantic Friendship, god damnit deleted it!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoAshamed/pseuds/SoAshamed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Karl Vargas is not Karkat Vantas, but oddly enough happens to remember that one time when he was. He encounters one (1) wild cooldouche that he is unsurprisingly rather annoyed with, and one (1) love interest that he finds he is indeed rather interested in.</p><p>He is, however, much, much more interested in getting the stones to check and see if any of it is real.</p><p>(Accidentally deleted. no new chapter yet.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday Finds you Like a Bomb

**Author's Note:**

> I....deleted...it...fuckfuckfuckk
> 
> I was trying to...delete a draft...testing out pesterchum. and i deleted. the whole. fic. never before has my screen name been so appropriate. i am sorry for all the lost kudos and kind comments. You were all so kind to me and my past self fucked this up for all of us.
> 
> For the kink meme prompt http://homesmut.livejournal.com/10240.html?thread=18123776#t18123776

As far as Karl -- or Karkat for that matter -- was concerned, sleep was the enemy.

Nothing good ever came of sleeping. He went to sleep and he was haunted by terrible eldritch nightmares, an abyss that stared back at him with monstrous teeth and lolling black tongues, just waiting to suck out his organs. He went to sleep and one of his friends did a backwards fucking pirouette off the handle and another one got his legs sawed off. He went to sleep and he got dragged through time and space, slapped onto a stone bed and brutally murdered.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the whole story, and maybe he was drawing a few false correlations there, but the point was that he went to sleep and things went wrong. Which was why Karl Vargas was not going to sleep. He was going to stay awake as long as he possibly could. Because he was _sure_ that every time he went to sleep was just one step closer to this idyllic new world finally crumbling away from him. He knew that he might just go to sleep and wake up to find that _HAA HAA HEE HEE HOO HOO, guess you shouldn’t have CLOSED your EYES, karkat!_ And if this world was nothing more than a cruel joke then Karl at least wanted to enjoy it as much as he could.

It had been seven days and he’d managed to only go to sleep twice, staying awake through a series of catnaps at school and red bull binges. He really wasn’t sure how much longer he could go, but he was going to make as valiant an effort as he could (and wasn’t that what Knights were supposed to do? make Valiant efforts?).

Karl sighed and hunched over his laptop awkwardly, his fingers smashing across the keyboard to write his latest mindless rant online. Vomiting mountains of empty insults on all the posts he could find on even tangentially related interests, just to try and find the others, was stupid and Karl knew it. It was so stupid, but he had to do anything he could and there really wasn’t all that much he could do. He didn’t know their names, where they lived or what they were doing with their lives; all he knew was their general personalities, and as batshit insane as they were, it still wasn’t much to go on.

By some kind of miracle, his intentionally incredible display of idiocy on Serebii.net had found him Tavros, or Travis as it was now. There was no mistaking that typing quirk, or that all around general uselessness. And of course Travis was the kind of dumbass that had a link to his _public_ facebook on his forum account.

That was how Karl had found Gary, who was also too much of a dumbass to friends lock his facebook. And _of course_ he didn’t think that a stranger messaging him over the internet was weird, because fucking self preservation; how did it work? No, Gary had happily declared it a miracle and invited Karl to smoke a joint with him. When he’d met up with Gary for the illicit drug consumption he’d managed to meet Travis in person, along with Travis’ larping buddy, Victoria. It hadn’t taken long Karl to be assured she was still a huge bitch who was creepy as shit with spiders. But she seemed less of a homicidal bitchtit and more of a semi-functioning member of society which had to be a step up.

One of Karl’s rants on hacking and how much more amazing he was at it than everyone had also managed to find him Sol. Who, as it turned out, wasn’t too much of a dumbass to keep his shit public, but _was_ too much of a dumbass to resist a challenge, even from a snot nosed little shit who couldn’t hack his way out of a digital paper bag. Karl had gone through twelve antivirus programs and two motherboards in four days, but it had gotten them talking, even if it was just because that asshole liked to show off, and that was what mattered.

But, for all eight billion of his other rants, Karl hadn’t managed to find anyone else but those four and Terri. Finding Terri wasn’t exactly a feat either: she was his neighbour and took the bus with him to school every day. Logic told him that he’d only been on this world for a week, but the memories lain over those of his old life told him he’d lived beside Terri’s tacky red house all his life. Those memories had also helpfully informed him that the others might not remember SGRUB, which none of them did because all worlds enjoyed fucking him over.

That still only made six out of twelve and he still hadn’t hunted down any of the human kids. Trollian didn’t exist, so all the former-troll’s names and everything else was fucked to shit. They didn’t even use the same programs: Travis used Yahoo, Gary used MSN, Victoria and Terri both used Skype, and Sol used some crazy thing Karl had never even heard of. All of their user names were different.

PesterChum, on the other hand, did still exist and it would have made sense if the kids used it, so Karl had tried the chumhandles as best as he could remember. turntechGod and gardenGnome both weren’t active, but he was pretty sure he’d gotten them wrong. tentacleRapist had gotten him someone alright, but they definitely _hadn’t_ been Rose.

The one name he did remember, ectoBiologist, came up as an inactive chumhandle, no matter how often he tried it.

Karl hit enter, glaring into the soft glow of his monitor as he sent out his rant. It was his eleventh rant put up on a Nicolas Cage fan club, and frankly he was running out of Nic Cage fanclubs. People hated the man, there wasn’t that much positive stuff about him online. Karl was getting kind of desperate, daring to throw in the words bulgelicker and nookwhiffing. It felt a pretty unnatural now, his memories of being Karkat were faded and far away, but it wasn’t like the goal was to hurt Nic Cage’s precious feelings or anything.

And besides, arguing with the whopping three Nic Cage white knights that would leap at his rant would at least keep him awake.

  



	2. You Know What to do, G

It was finally Friday afternoon and Karl had never been so fucking happy for a weekend in his miserable excuse of a life. Okay, so he probably had, probably for every weekend (although those weekends hadn’t been real), but right then he was _beyond fucking relieved._

For one, he hated school and thought his teachers were dumbfucks, and the kids were dumbfucks and the stupid material they were studying was made by dumbfucks for dumbfucks. Earth’s technology, literature and entire goddamn culture was a step behind and only Karl knew it. The weekend at least meant he wouldn’t have to deal with double vision of what was(/wasn’t really) and what never was(/no longer was).

Just as importantly, for two blessed days he also wouldn’t have to deal with Terri, at least for the most part. That was always a bonus. Becoming human had in no way changed her, she was still a buttfuck crazy ass bitch. She still licked anything she could get away with licking and some things she couldn’t. She still had broken his fragile little thirteen year old heart and god knew she still loved cane drubbings. Going anywhere with Terri was a portable hell all its own, but she was still his best fucking friend in the world.

He limped off the city bus onto the sidewalk, having been temporarily crippled by the whack of a certain blind bitch’s cane to the goddamn shin, just in time to see it.

The oddest thing was that it was so normal looking, just someone stumbling into Terri. It was one of those things that happened all the time. She’d been purposefully taking up the whole sidewalk, which she did at every opportunity. Her favourite game was chicken, and while most people moved for the blind girl, other people either played right back or didn’t notice.

The boy who stumbled into Terri hadn’t done the best job, it looked pretty fake in fact, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that Karl _knew_ that ironically messy, platinum blonde haircut, and he _knew_ those stupid coolkid shades and he definitely, _definitely_ knew the broken record on his shirt.

Dave (and it had to be Dave, it had to) straightened up, reaching out to clap a hand on Terri’s shoulder as she righted her red tinted glasses. He must have grown, because he was taller than her, and Terri towered over most people their age. She was a polearm of a girl, all length, sharp angles and perfect teeth, topped with carefully curled brown hair. Next to her spindly body Strider’s pale ass almost looked strong. Of course Karl knew for a fact that Terri could beat a man twice her size five ways to Sunday, and that she carried no less than three cans of pepper spray on her person at any given time.

"Oh, sorry about that." Dave’s drawl had that familiar accent that Karl could now identify as Southern. It was just one of the hundred things that had clicked into place when he had woken up a week ago to the shrill sound of his alarm clock and the even shriller sound of his Dad’s voice. "You alright?"

Terri still had the most terrifying smile known to any race and she grinned at Dave with it. "Are _you_ alright?"

"Me? I’m just peachy." Dave shrugged in a way that was just so damned casual, Karl was sure the asshole had to have spent hours in front a a mirror perfecting it. "So peachy right here I'm about to fall off the tree. Probably won't even bruise my delicate skin that's how peachy this bitch is." 

Terri's face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before smoothing out. "That sounds pretty peachy."

"I know, right?" Dave crossed his arms and looked away for a moment before turning back to give Terri a half smile, which was more than the cooldouche was usually willing to give up (at least during the game, but there hadn’t been much to smile about then at all). There was only a moments pause before he spoke. "Did you need some help?"

Karl failed to resist the urge to face palm, but if either of the two assmasters standing in front of him heard his hand smacking into his face as violently as he could manage without hurting himself, then they didn’t care. Dave must have just been too busy being an apathetic creepwad, and Terri was clearly too busy looking like Christmas had come early and there were a million presents in ugly ass dragon wrapping paper under the tree.

Karl wasn’t surprised, the only thing Terri liked better than people who randomly asked if she needed help was a Law and Order marathon.

" _Oh?_ " She moved forward and leaned right up to Dave. She must have been invading his person space something fierce, and Karl knew from experience that he was probably being overwhelmed with the smell of cinnamon Listerine, but to his credit Dave took it like a trooper. The insufferable prick didn’t move an inch. "Are you saying you’ll help the poor blind girl? That I was _lost_ before you came along?"

He just shrugged, which was not a normal reaction to anything Terri did. Most people sputtered and apologized when she busted that accusation out, or started going off in awkward ableist rants, but not Dave fucking Strider. He just said, "Nope."

She tilted her head but didn’t back off. Terri never backed off. "Then what are you saying?"

"I’m looking for sidequests." And Karl smacked his other palm to his face, completing the x2 combo he had started. Might as well pull out all the stupid stops, clearly Dave was. "I’m all out here wandering, trying to find some NPCs that lost their chickens. I’m gonna go up against the final boss, gotta make sure I have all the skulltulas first. What if I beat the game without my giant’s wallet? Everything will have been in vain."

Terri fucking laughed at him, of course she did, a sharp, biting laugh that shook her whole body (it wasn’t a surprise, not really, Karl had seen this happen once over – the only difference was that _he_ was much more mature and much, much better practiced at shutting up than Karkat had ever been) "And what if I want that giant’s wallet for myself?"

"Then you gotta complete some quests." Karl was watching a metaphorical train wreck. For the second time he got to see the exploding graveyard of flirting that was Dave Strider and cry infinite rivers at the ironically ironic humanity of it all. "Bring a dude across town some warm milk or something. But I tell you what, it’s your lucky day: I’ve got a quest. I’m looking for something."

"And what are you looking for?"

Dave smiled again, a little wider this time. It almost seemed like it might be genuine. Almost. "Your number."

Terri threw her head back and all out cackled, like she was a witch in a bad 80s film, clutching at her sides and nearly falling over. It was the kind of laugh that needed to go up on Youtube for the world to see that some people were actually so royally fucked up that they laughed like that. It needed to be made into a million gifs with sayings so unbearably witty that Karl would stab out his eyeballs just so he wouldn’t have to see them. It was a amazing laugh, but even though it went on about a hundred million years too long the show had to come to a stop eventually. Terri finally straightened up and wiped at the milky white eyes hidden behind her stupid red glasses. "That was awful."

"So awful it roundabouts to be being ironically good." No, it didn’t. It was awful, this was awful and Karl knew that because he was a goddamn _expert_ on romance. Quadrants or love, he knew it all. He wrote the Dear Abby for their school paper, he had had all of the romances on Earth and he remembered all of the romances of Alternia. _All_ of them. And in neither universe was that pick up line okay. "It’s a double reacharound of bad pickup lines."

And just like that Karl instantly stopped caring about how the whole disaster was a harsh slap to the scrotum of romance itself, because there was something much more important afoot. He openly gaped at Dave, who wasn’t even sparing him a glance. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered because Karl was sure it was more than just the May sun beating down on them and making him delirious. Karl was sure Dave had just said it was a double reacharound.

A double reacharound.

Karl hadn’t heard that term in forever (a week).

Terri wasn’t fazed at all (but she didn’t remember the game, no one remembered). Instead she was reaching into her godawful dragon backpack, balancing that and her cane as she pulled out her favourite red sharpie. "Okay coolkid, you convinced me." She reached out and grabbed Dave’s pale wrist with what was sure to be a vice grip, violently yanking back the red cloth over his arm, but leaving her marker hovering over the skin. "I'll give you my number if you give me your name."

"Dave Strider, at your service." Karl had been right. Dave Strider (there was only one way he could have known Dave’s name), cooldouche extraordinaire was the one holding him up from going home and getting yelled at by his well meaning Dad for an hour.

"Terri." She grinned and scratched the marker across Dave’s arm with enthusiasm. "I only tell my last name to people after I have a background check."

"I see how it is, gotta keep the mystery." Terri capped her marker as Dave shrugged the fabric of his sweater down over a number he probably wouldn’t even be able to read. "Looks like that’s a quest complete. I can feel you moving up the echeladder already."

A chill ran down Karl’s spine because there it was again; echeladder. _Echeladder._ Dave had _really_ said echeladder. Except, unlike double reacharound, that wasn’t the kind of thing a person just came up with. There was only one place Karl ever heard that word in either of his lives.

"Hey!" He clenched his sweaty hands into fists and for the first time Dave really looked at him. It was like he hadn’t even really noticed Karl was there the whole time. Which was mildly insulting, but it wasn’t as though he’d really wanted the asshole’s attention anyway. Dave’s face was unreadable behind his shades, but Karl got the feeling he was doing a once over and wasn’t really impressed. Well fuck him, he was the one who had made this swirling shit tornado of a universe (or had he, was it even real) and thus the massive failure that was everything about Karl was at least tangentially his fault.

But there were more important matters at hand. He narrowed his eyes at Strider. "Do you remember?"

"Do you?" Dave rose an eyebrow over his glasses and Terri whipped around to look at Karl, her mouth making an odd twisting shape, almost like she was trying to shape it into a question mark. Which was nothing out of the ordinary.

Karl’s heart was thudding hard staccato against his ribcage because, oh god, maybe he wasn’t just crazy. He’d tried to avoid the thought, but of course it occurred to him every hour of every fucking day. The only person to remember being an alien in another universe and becoming human because of a game? How could he not think he was off his fucking nuts? That was tin foil hat level shit right there.

But if Dave really remembered, then he was safe. Then it was real (maybe). "Fuck you, Strider. Past me was such a grub fuck to ever listen to you." He tried to keep the hope out of the words as he spat them. "I never should have held my goddamned breath for any of you dumpasses."

"Huh." Dave nodded thoughtfully at him. "And here I thought only the four of us remembered."

Karl inhaled sharply, the words telling him everything he needed to know. The four, the kids. The kids remembered the game, the trolls didn’t. Except Karl(/Karkat) because he was freak of nature and always had been. He supposed it would have to manifest itself somehow. No universe could let Karl(/Karkat) be happy with himself (and, frankly, Karkat was probably to blame for it. There really was no one Karl hated more than that asshole).

Terri was shrugging her hideous bag back over her shoulder as she spoke, "And just how do you know this coolkid, Karl?" And for the briefest second Karl panicked because shit, shit, shit! What was he going to tell her? Terri was never satisfied with anything less than absolute truth and justice. When that CSI episode had let the murderer get away Terri had thrown a plate into her TV. Karl did not want to be the TV.

He needn’t have worried because before he could even start a word of a rant Dave was ploughing forwards with his own lie. "He bumped into me." Dave shrugged calmly, and Karl totally wasn’t jealous he could lie so effortlessly. "Apparently couldn't handle these illegal levels of cool, he started cursing up a storm so big I thought there was a hurricane. No way FEMA could have gotten there in time, so I was all ready to hide under my desk with my hands over my head and shit, except it didn’t matter."

Terri laughed at him again. "You just keep bumping into people!"

"How else am I going to complete enough quests to get my wallet?" Dave looked away and then back at Terri. He paused for a moment then spoke again. "Look, I’ve gotta go. Skulltula’s to kill, hearts to find, but I’ll have my people call your people."

"Don’t keep my people waiting forever!" Terri put a hand on her hips and bounced her walking cane off the ground dramatically. "Karl has things to do!"

Dave clicked his tongue. "Can do."

Karl glared at Terri then at Dave then back at Terri again, but even if either of them had noticed they wouldn’t have cared. He was about to tell her he, first of all, was not her person and second of all fuck her and finally, fuck that noise, he wasn’t going to wait even a second for Dave fucking Strider, but then Dave fucking Strider turned around and started to walk away.

Desperation welled up in Karl’s stomach, boiling over with the need for validation. Proof. Anything to tell him that he wasn’t going to wake up again somewhere else with a new life, or even worse, with an old one.

"Wait!" Dave turned around and tiled his head. Karl took a deep breath before continuing, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking with anticipation. "Egbert! What the fuck is his chumhandle? EctoBiologist turns up shit all."

"Dude, no trolls, remember?" Karl’s eyebrows knit in confusion , and Dave elaborated. "It’s still ghostyTrickster."

" _Fuuuuuuuuuck._ "

And Dave Strider graced him with a condescending half smile before strolling away.

Karl hardly even noticed it when Terri started to bombard him with questions about Dave. How could he when the insurmountably massive, ocean-like depths of his idiocy were staring him dead in the face? Of course John was still ghostyTrickster. No trolls. John changed his handle because they had trolled him, so of _course_ it would still be the same. Karl was the biggest shit coated dumbass of all universes real and imagined - how could he have fucked up something so simple and obvious? He wanted to bash his head off of something repeatedly.

Terri took care of the problem for him, bashing him in the head repeatedly with her walking cane for not paying attention to her.

Fuck his life.

  



End file.
